Radical Patience with Rowdy Tellez

A more patient Rowdy Tellez is a more dangerous one. That's been true at least as long as he's been with the Brewers. When he's working to get his pitch, he can hit for tremendous power. He's taking that approach to a new extreme, though, and it's working beautifully. 

Of the 173 hitters who would qualify for the batting title if the season ended today, only Max Muncy has swung at a lower percentage of pitches within the strike zone than Tellez. That's radical patience. It's led to a career-high walk rate of 11.7 percent, and that, in turn, has led to a .328 on-base percentage--better than those he ran in either of the last two seasons, by some 20 points. Obviously, not swinging within the zone does come with some tradeoffs, and Tellez's strikeout rate has climbed to just under 25 percent. 

For him, though, that's been the perfect exchange to make. Muncy strikes out almost 29 percent of the time. Similar players, if they don't have good contact skills on which to fall back when they don't get their pitch early in the count, often run a strikeout rate north of 30 percent. That's a major problem, but Tellez makes contact on almost 87 percent of his swings within the zone. That's an above-average number, and it's up from previous years. It's all a result of waiting more studiously for his pitch.

This hasn't led to an explosion in his contact quality. In fact, both the frequency and the intensity of Tellez's hard contact are down this year. Instead, he's just placing the ball better and squaring it up more. He's pulling more of his batted balls than ever. He's hitting fewer pop-ups and fewer ground balls, a rare twinned achievement, and getting it in the air with some carry more consistently.

One thing that has helped, as you might expect, is that Tellez has seen fewer left-handed pitchers this year. In his first year and a half in Milwaukee, he faced righties in about 78 percent of his plate appearances. This season, that number is up to just under 82 percent. That makes it easier to be a more disciplined hitter, and to hit the ball hard, but the effect is very small. Much more saliently, Tellez just seems to have become more attuned with his own strengths and weaknesses as a hitter. 

Here's Tellez's swing rate by pitch location for 2022.

And here's 2023.

He's trying to do the same things: get something inside, something a bit elevated, something he can drive in the air. He's just being much more granular and intentional about it. He's being incrementally, but vitally, more selective, and it's given him a real chance to enjoy a 40-home run season, with better on-base skills, to boot.

Again, Tellez has always defied his caricature. He makes contact better and can modulate his approach more than hitters who are superficially similar. This season still marks a major evolution for him, though, and it couldn't be a more welcome one for the offense-starved Brewers.